The sigma meson from QCD sum rules for large-N_c Regge spectra

The QCD sum rules in the large-N_c limit for the light non-strange vector, axial and scalar mesons are considered assuming a string-like linear spectrum for the radially excited states. We propose an improved method for combined analysis of these channels that gives a reasonable description of the observed spectrum. In the vector-axial case, fixing the pion decay constant and the gluon condensate we obtain more or less physical values for the masses of ground states and the quark condensate. Thus a typical need for this method to fix the mass of some ground state is overcome. Using in the scalar channel the values of presumably universal slope of radial trajectories and the quark condensate obtained in the vector-axial channel, we find that, in contrast to some strong claims in the literature, a prediction of light scalar state with a mass close to the mass of f₀(500) seems to be natural in the considered approach and may follow in a natural way from the Regge phenomenology. (orig.)